by Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY

by Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 58.83 points, or 0.4%, to 16,323.06, after being as high as 16,415 earlier in the session. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 8.58 points, or 0.5% to 1,857.62. The Nasdaq composite index gained 4.53 points, or 0.1%, to 4,155.76.

For the week, the S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the Dow rose 0.1%. The Nasdaq dropped 2.8%.

The biggest gainer in the Dow was Microsoft, which rose 2.4% to $40.30. The company announced Thursday that it was bringing Microsoft Office to the iPad and would shift its focus away from Windows, a move that analysts cheered.

"We continue to view (this) as a massive revenue and operating profit opportunity for Microsoft," analysts at Credit Suisse said in a report Thursday.

In IPO news, CBS Outdoor rose 5.4% to $29.50 on its first day of trading. CBS decided to spin off the outdoor advertising company into a separate publicly traded company because executives believed billboard advertising did not fit well with CBS's primary business of broadcasting.

The latest economic report showed that Americans spent more in February as consumer spending grew at a modest pace despite the severe winter weather in much of the country. The increase was the most in three months.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.72%, up from 2.69% Thursday.

Benchmark New York oil gained 31 cents to $101.59, compared to the previous close of $101.28, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Markets were higher in Europe and Asia also.

Asian stocks rose as as expectations grew that China will move to counter its economic slowdown. Chinese officials have set a target of 7.5% economic growth this year but are more concerned about ensuring sufficient new jobs are created than precisely meeting the GDP figure.

Japan's Nikkei 225 stock index gained 0.5% to close at 14,696.03. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 1.1% to 22,065.53. But the Shanghai Composite fell 0.2% to 2,041.71 as major banks reported profits in line with analysts' forecasts.

Benchmarks across Europe advanced, with the German DAX index leading the way with a 1.4% gain to 9,587.19. Britain's FTSE 100 index added 0.4% to 6,615.58 and France's CAC 40 index rose 0.7% to 4,411.26.

On Wall Street on Thursday, the Dow fell 4.76 points, or 0.03% to 16,264.23. The S&P 500 index dropped 3.52 points, or 0.2%, to 1849.04. The Nasdaq composite index fell 22.35 points, or 0.5%, to 4151.23.